Toy vehicles have achieved a wide popularity in the consumer market, especially as children's toys, and are configured to simulate a broad category of full-sized vehicles including but not limited to motorcycles, racing cars, and trucks. Typically, such toy vehicles are unpowered or powered by spring, inertia or battery powered motors. However, a small group of such toy vehicles have been powered by flywheels which are in the form of drive wheels or are coupled in some way, typically gearing, to a drive wheel or wheels.
Such flywheel equipped toy vehicles are commonly energized and released from a launching mechanism that includes a platform, such as that described in either U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,886,682 ('682) or 4,498,886 ('886), whereby a toy vehicle is propelled down an inclined ramp and in a preselected direction. Children commonly use the combination toy vehicle and launcher mechanism in pursuit of competitive games won by the child that launches the toy vehicle so that it moves the furthest distance or ends up the closest to a selected target on a simulated racing surface. The experience of releasing the toy vehicle from the launcher may be enhanced in a manner similar to a drag race event, wherein the speed (revolutions per minutes (RPM)) of the engine of the drag racer has achieved a relatively high RPM before the drive wheels are engaged initiating the drag race.
In any game participated in by children, the factors that may scare or even cause physical harm to the child should be taken into account, as well as any ensuing damage to the child's play area. For example, if a toy vehicle is launched but in the wrong direction, a child may quickly capture or attempt to pick-up the toy vehicle in an effort to re-direct it along its proper path, even though the wheels of the toy vehicle are still rotating and at a considerable speed. For such a situation, the rotating wheels may come into contact and hit or rub against the hand of the child and, therefore, may cause some possible bruises or abrasions to the child's fingers or may more likely cause the child to drop the toy vehicle, thereby, possibly damaging the surface serving as a roadway for the toy vehicle. The prior toy vehicles and associated launcher mechanisms, while having selected benefits, seem to be specifically lacking in providing a toy vehicle having either an exposed flywheel or flywheel driven road wheel that can be safely brought to a halt when grabbed by a child or striking an object while rotating at high speed. It would be desirable to provide a flywheel equipped toy vehicle in which a rotating road vehicle comes to a complete stop, while avoiding serious injury to a child grabbing the wheel and damage to the surface serving as the roadway.
Further, the prior art devices also seem to generally fail in providing a toy vehicle and launcher combination that allows the toy vehicle to be easily released from the launcher other than with the launcher firmly planted on the ground or other support surface. Such devices are usually designed in a way that also requires the user to hold or press the launcher against the support surface to operate the mechanism accelerating the flywheel. Such restrictions on the use of these toys limit their entertainment value to children.